REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
TEACHING GOAL: Weighing some ways to enrich our prayer life.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:7-12)
INTRODUCTION:
FLIP CHART: Go over the four high demand verses in order: Mt. 5:20 (For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses … , Mt. 5:48 (Be perfect ….), Mt. 6:33 (But seek first His Kingdom …), Mt. 7:12 (So in everything …). Use Flip-Charts of paraphrases of these verses.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
THE GOLDEN RULE (Mt. 7:12)
I. The Primacy of the Golden Rule
II. The Negative Golden Rule
III. The Wisdom of the Golden Rule
IV. The Golden Rule’s Attack on Selfishness
V. The Golden Rule and the Second Commandment
VI. Our Model in Practicing the Golden Rule
VII. Keeping Perfectly the Golden Rule is Impossible
THE GOLDEN RULE II
I. THE PRIMACY OF THE GOLDEN RULE
“The Golden Rule is the most universally praised statement Jesus ever made.” (James Boice, 241) It has been called the Mt. Everest of Ethics.
According to God’s Word, the Golden Rule is a general summary of all the ethical / social teaching of the OT.
Mt. 22:40 – All Law and the Prophets hang on first two commandments
Rom. 13:8 – He who loves fellowman has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:10 – Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Gal. 5:14 – Law fulfilled in one word, love your neighbor.
I Tim. 1:5 – The goal of the command is love.
II. THE NEGATIVE GOLDEN RULE (SILVER RULE)
Hinduism – This is the sum of duty: do naught to others which if done
to thee would cause thee pain. (The Mahabharata); Buddhism – Hurt not other with that which pains yourself (Udana-Varga); Judaism – What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowmen. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary. (The Talmud)
The negative Golden Rule, e.g. the Silver Rule is beneficial, helpful and practiced by almost every member of the human race.
III. THE WISDOM OF THE GOLDEN RULE
By turning the “Silver Rule” from negative to positive, the Lord turned on end some of the highest ethical ideas of his day.
Mt. 7:12 is a summary of a partial answer that would automatically be generated by Mt. 5:20: For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
IV. THE GOLDEN RULE’S ATTACK ON SELFISHNESS
The “negative” is not Golden because all negative expressions of the Golden Rule are expressions of self-interest, basically selfish, utilitarian rules.
The Greeks – Do not do unto others what angers you if done to you by
others. (Isocrates 436-338 BCE).
V. THE GOLDEN RULE & THE SECOND COMMANDMENT
COMPARING GR/SECOND COMMANDMENT
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets” (Mt. 7:12)
“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Mt. 22:39-40)
These two commandments are “sister” commandments.
We talk about John 3:16 being the Gospel in a nutshell. These two verses are the ethical / social relationship teaching of the Bible in a nutshell.
“. . . he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).
“For example, when you read in the Decalogue, in Exodus, chapter 20, starting in verse 12, that thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet, all of those things are simply a summation of, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” You don’t want them to kill you, steal from you, covet from you, commit adultery against you, etc. [But it is a negative summation]” (MacArthur, Web).
The Second Commandment is based on “love” of neighbor and although the Golden Rule doesn’t mention love, the motivation to treat others in a positive way is how love acts.
In Gal. 5:22 the first listed Fruit of the Spirit is love. In John 13:34 the new command that our Lord gives his followers is to love one another as he has loved them. In Romans 5:5 Paul states that God has poured His own love into the hearts of His children.
COMPARING GR TO REST OF SERMON ON THE MOUNT
QUESTION: How does the Golden Rule apply to all other points in the Sermon on the Mount?
5:3-10 — Beatitudes relate to the GR? (merciful & peacemakers (Gold))
5:16 – Let your good deeds shine. (Gold)
5:21-22 – Anger and murder (Silver)
5:23-26 – Reconciling with a brother. (Gold)
5:27-30 – Adultery (Silver)
5:31-32 – Divorce (Silver)
5:33-37 – Honesty (Gold)
5:38-48 – Enemies (Don’t retaliate (Silver), bless (Gold))
6:1-18 – Acts of righteousness, quietly, secretly.
6:12, 14-15 – Forgiving others
7:1-5 – Don’t be censorious, judgmental (Silver)
7:1-5 – Removing specks (Gold)
GR AND PRACTICAL OUTWORKING IN OUR LIVES
ILL: William Wilberforce, with many others in his day became deeply persuaded that this traffic in slaves was a great moral evil for many reasons, not the least of which was its utter inconsistency with Jesus’ Golden Rule.
On October 28, 1787, Wilberforce wrote in his diary at the age of twenty-eight, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of [Morals].”
Many of the Christian abolitionists of his day pressed the nation to look at things from the slaves’ point of view and to do to others as you would have them do to you. Abraham Booth, for example, a Calvinist Baptist preacher, preached a message in London on January 29, 1792, titled “Commerce in the Human Species, and the Enslaving of Innocent Persons, Inimical to the Laws of Moses and the Gospel of Christ.” One of the most moving parts of the message was his imagining the slave ships landing on British shores and raiding London and Bristol and Liverpool kidnapping your loved ones and dragging them away never to be seen again.
For twenty years Wilberforce endured setback after setback in his persistent public love. But he never gave up and on February 24, 1807, at 4:00 AM, twenty years later, the decisive vote was cast and the slave trade became illegal.
ILL: President Kennedy in 1963 appealed to the golden rule in an anti-segregation speech at the time of the first black enrollment at the University of Alabama. He asked whites to consider what it would be like to be treated as second-class citizens because of skin color. Whites were to imagine themselves being black – and being told that they couldn’t vote, or go to the best public schools, or eat at most public restaurants, or sit in the front of the bus. Would whites be content to be treated that way? He was sure that they wouldn’t – and yet this is how they treated others. He said the “heart of the question is … whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”
QUESTIONS: In the light of the Golden Rule how was it possible for Southern and Northern Christians including Abraham Lincoln to support slavery?
The only way Christians in the past subjugated Blacks was to call them sub-human. That was their solution. The key is to dehumanize an individual. Hitler did the same to the Jews and Gypsies in the Second World War and Muslims do the same to Jews today.
GR/2nd Commandment compel to action:
The Negative (Silver) Rule makes you obey traffic signs. You don’t want to be hurt so you don’t take a chance at hurting others. The Golden Rule / the ‘Love your Neighbor’ commandment compels you to stop and help a stranded motorist … or as Rich does, change a tire.
ILL: In “Christianity Today” magazine Glo and I noticed an advertisement for a new book titled, Love is a Verb.
The Greek verbs that describe what love looks like in I Corinthians 13:4-7 are all in the indicative mood, an objective fact, something that actually happens. Love is kind. This is what love looks like. It looks like kindness. It acts kindly. Love is patient. This is what love looks like. Love practices patience.
GR/2nd Commandment summarize OT Declarations on loving ones neighbors:
Isaiah 1:17 – Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
Ezekiel 18:7 – He does not oppress anyone, but returns what he took in pledge for a loan. He does not commit robbery but give his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked.
Micah 6:8 – He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
QUESTION: Who is to be our example / model in practicing the Golden Rule?
VI. GOD IS OUR EXAMPLE FOR THE GOLDEN RULE
Note the word “So ….” which begins the 12th verse. This Greek word oun is translated as ‘therefore’ 263 times, ‘then’ 197 times and ‘so’ 18 times. So we can easily translate Mt. 7:12 as “therefore in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you ….”
We have learned that whenever we see a “therefore” in the Bible we need to check and see what it is there for.
QUESTION: Why does Jesus begin his statement of the Golden Rule with ‘therefore’?
QUESTION: What is given as the basic motivation for loving our enemies in Mt. 5:43-48?
God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ….. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt. 7:45,48)
We are to follow the example of our Father in heaven in loving our enemies.
In Mt. 7:12 we are to practice the GR as our Father models the GR.
QUESTION: How does our Father model the Golden Rule for us?
A father gives good gifts to his child. Our Father in heaven gives good gifts to us when we ask, when we pray, including, the best gift of all, the Holy Spirit, according to Luke 11:13.
The way that God treats us, His ‘evil’ children, is the way we are to treat others. God gives good gifts. He is to be our pattern in treating others.
ILL: God isn’t like other deities. The Greeks had their stories about their gods who answered men’s prayers. Aurora was the goddess of the dawn. She fell in love with Tithonus, a mortal youth. Zeus, who was the king of the gods, offered Aurora any gift that she might choose for her mortal lover. She asked Zeus that Tithonus should live forever. In other words, she wanted immortality for him so they could stay together forever. But she had forgotten to ask that Tithonus might remain forever young. And so, according to the mythology, Tithonus grew old forever, without ever being able to die. The Greeks saw gods that played tricks and brought curses. Our God is not so. (The Web)
READING: When I titled this message “The Spring of Persistent Public Love,” this is what I was referring to. Doing to others what you would have them do to you is what I mean by persistent public love. And the spring of it is explained by the word so or therefore. You have a Father in heaven who, because of Christ’s work, only gives his children what is good for them. Therefore, love people persistently. Treat them the way you would like to be treated. Your Father’s blood-bought care for you is the spring of your persistent public love. If you experience him as this kind of Father, you will love people like this. (John Piper, The Web)
“For those who God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness (image) of his Son . . . “ (Romans 8:29).
“Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)
And we are to become as perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect in his treatment of the unrighteous and the evil (Mt. 5:48). We are to treat others as we would want to be treated and model our treatment of others after God’s treatment of us for He gives us good gifts, treats us well (Mt. 7:11-12).
VII. PRACTICING PERFECTLY THE GOLDEN RULE IS IMPOSSIBLE
FLIP-CHART: Have three people come to the front and each draw a straight line on the Flip Chart, each using a different color. QUESTION: What is the best, surest way to gauge which line is the straightest?
APPLICATION: In England a ruler is called a “straight edge.” The “Golden Rule” could be called “The Golden Straightedge.” The Golden Rule is a good rule / straight edge to evaluate our lives from the aspect of selfishness. In its negative form it does not touch selfishness. In its positive form it does.
Mt. 7:12 is really God’s straight edge to show the human race how crooked we are.
Now it is impossible for a person to keep the positive form of the Golden Rule perfectly, that is live a totally selfless life. To do so he would need to keep his mind entirely off himself and fixed at all moments on the needs, loves, joys, hopes, dreams of others.
So the first thing “The Golden Straightedge” does for us is show us that we can never be as God wants us to be on our own.
READING: Now, every once in a while, you know, somebody may stumble on a good deed and do something, like the blind pig that finds the slop now and then. It may happen inadvertently. But it’ll never be a pattern of life. It’ll never be a conscious, purely motivated, free giving pattern of life. Like Titus is told in chapter 3, verse 3 by the apostle Paul, “Men are hateful, hating one another.” And II Tim. 3:2 he reminded Timothy that people are lovers of themselves. And it’s “protect myself” that drives them. (John MacArthur from the Web)
All mankind is tainted with narcissism. The term narcissism means love of oneself and refers to the set of character traits concerned with self-admiration, self-centeredness and self-regard. The name was chosen by Sigmund Freud, from the Greek myth of Narcissus.
ILL: In the tale of Narcissus as told by Ovid (Roman poet remembered for his elegiac verses on love (43 BC – AD 17), Echo, a nymph (minor nature goddess), falls in love with a vain youth named Narcissus, who was the son of the blue Nymph Liriope of Thespia. The river god Cephisus had once encircled the blue Nymph Leirope with the windings of his streams, and thus trapping her, had seduced the nymph, who gave birth to an exceptionally beautiful boy. Concerned about the welfare of such a beautiful child, Lirope consulted the prophet Teiresias regarding her son’s future. Teiresias told the nymph that Narcissus would live to a ripe old age, “if he didn’t come to know himself.”
When he had reached “his sixteenth year,” every girl (and boy) in the town was in love with him, but he haughtily spurned them all.
One day when Narcissus was out deer hunting, Echo, who had fallen in love with him, stealthily followed the handsome youth through the woods, longing to address him but unable to speak first. When Narcissus finally heard footsteps and shouted “Who’s there?” Echo answered “Who’s there?” And so it went, until finally Echo showed herself and rushed to embrace the lovely youth. He pulled away from the nymph and vainly told her to leave him alone. Narcissus left Echo heartbroken and she spent the rest of her life in lonely glens (typically a long, deep U shaped valley), pining away for the love she never knew, until only her voice remained.
Nemesis (the goddess of divine retribution and vengeance) heard this prayer and sent Narcissus his punishment. He came across a deep pool in a forest, from which he took a drink. As he did, he saw his reflection for the first time in his life and fell in love with the beautiful boy he was looking at, not realizing it was himself. Eventually, after pining away for a while, he realized that the image he saw in the pool was a reflection of himself. Realizing that he could not act upon this love, he tore at his dress and beat at his body, his life force draining out of him. As he died, the bodiless Echo came upon him and felt sorrow and pity. His soul was sent to “the darkest hell” and the narcissus flower grew where he died. It is said that Narcissus still keeps gazing on his image in the waters of the river Styx that formed the boundary between earth and the underworld. (Roman version of the myth about Narcissus, from Wikipedia)
All sin basically results from a pre-occupation with ourselves. Sin is basically selfishness.
QUESTION: What sin is emphasized in the first three verses of I Corinthians 13, the great chapter on love?
Answer: Lovelessness or selfishness. You can speak with the tongue of an angel and not be a loving person. You can prophecy, fathom mysteries, have great knowledge, but still be a very selfish person. You can give your body as a martyr and still be self-seeking.
The goal [of martyrdom] may be to gain the affection of your peers, to gain a reputation, to make a name for yourself in society, to have a martyr’s complex, to go down in history, to whatever, whatever. (John MacArthur, The Web)
In the book Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet Doris Goodwin, the author, emphasized that one of he driving forces in the life of Lincoln, maybe the driving force, was that he did not want to die and not be remembered for accomplishing something.
So what really does drive us to serve, care for others? Is selfishness hidden, buried in our motive when we serve? Or is love the driver?
“The dynamic for fulfilling this ethic has to come from outside our fallen nature. It has to come when the indwelling Spirit is planted within us, and the fruit of the Spirit is, what’s the first one? Love. Man utterly, selfishly, hopelessly trapped in his sin, cannot express this marvelous ethic. But we as Christians better.” (John MacArthur, The Web)
In order to live like this, in order to really practice the Golden Rule we need a daily infilling with the Holy Spirit. That is why I like John Stott’s Morning Prayer he prays at the beginning of every day:
PRAYER: Good morning, Heavenly Father; Good morning, Lord Jesus; Good morning Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, I worship you, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Lord Jesus, I worship you, Savior and Lord of the world. Holy Spirit, I worship you, Sanctifier of the people of God. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that this day I may live in your presence and please you more and more. Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you. Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself and cause your fruit to ripen in my life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Holy, blessed and glorious trinity; three persons in one God, have mercy upon me. Amen.
GRACIOUS SPIRIT, DWELL WITH ME
Gracious Spirit, dwell with me;
I myself would gracious be;
And with words that help and heal
Would Thy life in mine reveal;
And with witness bold and meek
Would for Christ my Savior speak.
Truthful Spirit, dwell with me;
I myself would truthful be;
And with wisdom kind and clear
Let Thy life in mine appear;
And with actions brotherly
Show my Lord’s sincerity.
Tender Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would tender be.
Shut my heart up like a flower
At temptation’s darksome hour;
Open it when shines the sun,
And His love by fragrance own.
Mighty Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would mighty be,
Mighty so as to prevail
Where unaided man must fail,
Ever by a mighty hope
Pressing on and bearing up.
Holy Spirit, dwell with me;
I myself would holy be;
Separate from sin, I would
Choose and cherish all things good,
And whatever I can be
Give to Him Who gave me Thee!
SO WHAT???
1. The Golden Rule is the summation of the ethical teaching of the Bible in a nutshell.
2. The Lord Jesus turned common ethical behavior on its head by turning the “Silver Rule” based on self-concern to the “Golden Rule” that is truly altruistic, focused on the needs of others.
3. Our Heavenly Father is our model in practicing the Golden Rule.
4. What is a Christian like? He/she is a counter-cultural individual who practices self-giving, selfless love as defined in the Golden Rule.